1.
A ‘BLUE AND WHITE’ ‘SINGLE PHOENIX’ VASE, MEIPING
Yuan dynasty, circa 1350
41,5 cm high (excluding cover; neck reduced)
Naples, Villa della Floridiana, Museo Duca di Martina, collezione Placido de Sangro (1829-1891).
inv. n. 3525.
This exceptional and important vase represents a number of the finest features of the late Yuan dynasty ‘blue and white’ porcelain production and culture.
The Mongol empire at its zenith stretched from Eastern and parts of central Europe and northwards to Siberia, east and south to the Indian sub-continent, south-east Asia, and the Iranian plateau, and west to the Levant and Carpathian mountains. The Yuan dynasty was established in 1279 by Khubilai Khan (1215-1294), at a time when the empire has separated into four khanates: the Golden Horde in the northwest, the Chagatai in Central Asia, the Ilkhanate in the southwest and the Yuan dynasty in the east, with its capital in Dadu (Beijing). These conquests also prompted and enabled flourishing cross-cultural influence between regions as a result of trade and diplomatic relations and exchanges. In China the Yuan dynasty conquered areas which previously were controlled by the Northern Song dynasty and were conquered by the Tungut Xixia dynasty in the northwest as well as areas previously controlled by the Khitan Liao dynasty and later Jurchen Jin dynasty in the north. The Yuan later expanded to the south conquering the remaining Southern Song dynasty.
In porcelain and stoneware production the Yuan dynasty departed from the previous Song dynasty in a number of ways. Different forms were introduced, with the potters treating the clay as an expressive and plastic medium rather than a form thrown and emerging more ‘naturally’ from the potter’s wheel (J.C.Y. Watt, The Decorative Arts, in The World of Khubilai Khan: Chinese Art in the Yuan Dynasty, exhibition catalogue, New York 2010, p. 269).
Most transformative was the use of the rich and vibrant cobalt blue (and to a lesser extent the copper-red) used to paint the design under the glaze as seen in this example in comparison to the more monochromatic Song wares. Whilst underglaze ‘blue and white’ was first introduced during the late Tang dynasty, circa ninth century, it was only much later during the Yuan dynasty from the 1330s that it gained prominence as the main decorative feature. The cobalt ore originating in Kashan was imported by Persian traders to China. Rich in iron content, the blue made from the ore resulted in the typical ‘heaping and piling’ effect produced during the firing in the kiln. The porcelain body of the vessels was used as a painting canvas with skilful painters using the brush to paint flora and fauna, mythical creatures such as the phoenix on this vase, and scenes taken from Yuan period dramas and narratives and based on wood block prints. Such scenes and motifs appealed to the wider popular culture, as well as, with regard to flora and fauna decorated pieces, also being highly sought after in the export trade, as can be seen in the extensive historical collections of the Ottoman Sultans preserved in the Topkapi Saray, Istanbul, and in the collection from the Ardebil Shrine presented by Shah Abbas in 1611, and now mostly in the Tehran Archaeological Museum.
The shape of this vase – also known as ‘plum vase’, the literal translation of meiping – was originally a vessel containing an alcoholic beverage, and is characterised by the baluster shape rising to the rounded swelling shoulders surmounted by a slender cylindrical neck with flared rim. Such vases would usually have had a cover.
The underglaze cobalt-blue on this vase is of a vibrant purplish tone, painted in darker and lighter shades to enhance the three-dimensionality of the design such as the overlapping petals and overlapping rows of feathers. Typical to the imported cobalt blue with high iron oxide content, the painted design is speckled with darker spots, where the dense iron content burnt in the firing process, an effect known as ‘heaped and piled’. The juxtaposing of the dazzling blue painted on the white porcelain body covered with a pale bluish white transparent glaze can be traced as a colour-scheme back to the late Tang dynasty. However this colour scheme was relatively uncommon at the time. A further source and influence for this colour scheme may have been Kashan pottery wares produced circa 1200-1220 in Persia, perhaps not surprising given that this was also later the source for the imported cobalt blue to China.
The phoenix motif painted on porcelain reflects similar ones used on Chinese textiles, lacquer, metal work and also architecturally. Chinese phoenixes appear in a number of variations which may be differentiated by their tail feathers, as studied and identified by Professor Peter Lam. These are the Huang (female) with a scrolling tail with further bifurcated off-tails, the Feng (male) with a number of elongated parallel tails, and the Luan with a bifurcated tail. The present vase is painted with a single Huang phoenix.
The phoenix is considered the king of all birds and symbolises virtue and good fortune, and opportunity as it is said to appear only in time of peace and prosperity. It represents the virtues of benevolence including righteousness, propriety, knowledge and sincerity. It has also evolved to represent the empress.
The phoenix motif on Yuan porcelain is well known. However, more typically such phoenix would not be solitary but with other phoenix or mythical creatures, they would be painted within a cartouche or without one but framed by other decorative designs and borders, and they would be depicted in their entirety including tail, body and head on a single surface of the vessel.
The present vase is exceptionally rare in that it is painted with a solitary, in the round, phoenix. This phoenix is painted with its body and tail encompassing the shoulders and body of the vase, and with the head separately modelled and painted as the cover to the vase. However, the original cover is missing and has been replaced with a European pottery one dating to circa 1860s-1880s. The idea of the vessel modelled as a three-dimensional creature, in part or in whole, can be traced in China as far back as the Neolithic Yangshao Culture (circa 5500-3500 BC), with burial excavations yielding pottery animals such as owl and bird-shaped vessels at Huaxian Taipingzhuang, Shaanxi Province. The development of the present vase and the idea of showing the creature in its entirety can also be traced to Tang dynasty ‘phoenix’ head cream and sancai-glazed ewers and Liao dynasty ewers, such as the examples in the Tokyo National Museum (Illustrated Catalogues of Tokyo National Museum. Chinese Ceramics, Tokyo 1965, nn. 61, 66, 84, 87, 88 and 176), and see also a white porcelain ewer, 10th-11th century, from the Eumorfopoulos Collection, in the British Museum (illustrated in J. Rawson, Chinese Ornament: The Lotus and the Dragon, London 1984, fig. 65d). These in turn were influenced by Sassanid metal wares. Whilst these ceramic examples all have in common a moulded phoenix head as part of the neck and spout and/or cover, the Yuan potters innovated in depicting the entire body and tail on the vase, whilst in earlier examples the body is typically decorated with other ornaments, motifs or further depictions of the phoenix bird.
Only one other closely related example is known, a ‘blue and white’ meiping vase, Yuan dynasty, illustrated in Exhibition of Ancient Chinese Ceramics: The Kao Chi Society of Chinese Art, exhibition catalogue, Hong Kong 1981, n. 58. The neck is slightly reduced, and the vase is missing the original cover and has a modern replacement. It is much smaller in size, measuring only 29,2 cm high compared to the 41,5 cm height of the Duca di Martina vase, even in its much-reduced neck height. Whilst the principle of painting the phoenix body and tail on the vase, which is of similar form, and having a separate cover modelled as the phoenix head, is the same, there are a number of significant differences. The type of phoenix on the Duca di Martina vase as noted above is the female Huang, whereas the type of phoenix on the other example is Feng (male). The arrangement of the phoenix on the former is more encompassing around approximately three-quarters of the vase in a more fluid and natural manner, compared to the latter covering approximately half of the vase with a stiffer straight arrangement of the feathers.
Two other related examples with a single phoenix painted over the vessel are ‘blue and white’ flattened ewers (feng shou bianhu), Yuan dynasty, with the phoenix head forming the spout, the first, excavated from the Yuan capital site Dadu, now in the Capital Museum, Beijing, illustrated by Wang Qingzheng (A Dictionary of Chinese Ceramics, Singapore 2002, p. 63), featuring a Huang phoenix; and the second, unearthed in Huocheng, Xinjiang, featuring a Feng phoenix, and now in the Museum of Yili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture in Inner Mongolia (Zhongguo taoci quanji, Shanghai 2000, vol. 11, pl. 193). Interestingly, both ewers are painted against a blossoming foliate lotus scroll, whereas the two meiping vases are painted against a blossoming foliate peony scroll.
Similarly to the phoenix considered as the ‘King of birds’ , the peony is considered as the ‘king of flowers’. The combination symbolises prosperity, auspicious future, happiness, wealth and prestige.
The Duca di Martina ‘phoenix’ vase is a world masterpiece of porcelain production displaying the maturity of porcelain and ‘blue and white’ decoration accomplished by the Yuan potters in Jingdezhen by circa 1350s. Its elegant meiping form, vividness of cobalt blue, and exceptional in the round design, demonstrate the innovative ability of the Yuan potters.
